


Don't Look Back

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Pretentious but my doc title for this is Spiral Orpheus), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Complete, F/F, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, M/M, Minor Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Minor Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Non-Linear Narrative, Set in S4, Statement Addiction (The Magnus Archives), Trans Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26871178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: After the monster intervention, Jon disappears. Martin blames himself, and sets out to figure out where Jon is, and how to bring him back.Meanwhile, Jon--well, that's a much harder story to tell. Much stranger, too.
Relationships: Helen | The Distortion & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Helen | The Distortion, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 71
Kudos: 238





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this for a while and I'm glad I finally started it! Set immediately post-146 (the one with the monster intervention). I'm looking forward to continuing, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

The hallway twists into a sharp right turn, and then dead-ends, and the powerless creature numbly stumbling through it pauses, heaving a deep sigh, hand tracing the carpeted wall at the end of the hall as it shoots up into the ceiling. He knows when he turns, the hallway behind him will be completely new and unknown, and maybe at the end of it, he’ll find what he came here for.

What  _ did _ he come here for? A woman, but not a woman--a tear in reality that used to be a woman. The woman she used to be. Thoughts tangle. Recursive, painful, jagged edges that cut his mind to bloody shreds when he tries too hard to pull them apart. He was playing hero.

It’s hard to be a hero when you’re hungry, and he’s  _ starving _ , shuddering with it, desperate and weakening. He doesn’t remember where he is or where he came from. There  _ is _ no where he came from. The wall nudges into him.

He starts walking again. Why did he stop? He knows he has to keep going, if he’s going to find what he came for. He came for—what  _ did  _ he come for?

Oh well. He’ll find it eventually. He’ll--

*

Daisy invited Martin to the intervention, and he snorted and said “Oh  _ fuck _ no”. He’d sort of wanted her to fight back. Wanted her to say if he cared about Jon, or if he cared about those innocent people—but she just nodded and said that was fair. Said ‘it’s not like I’d want Basira at mine’. 

That comment didn’t make Martin too happy, but he didn’t really have the energy to say anything about it at the time, so he’d just grunted, said he hoped it went well. He knew it wouldn’t. He’d left the tape for them so they’d do something about it, probably, but he  _ deeply  _ didn’t want to be involved. There was no universe in which he could handle Jon’s inevitable stuttering defense of his own monstrosity. Martin didn’t--doesn’t--want to know what drives him, because he accepted, his heart sinking as he listened to that poor woman’s statement, that he didn’t really care.

His feelings for Jon just won’t die, no matter how badly he tries to choke them out, no matter how dark things get. It’s a goddamned nightmare, but he should’ve known--that nervous jittering aching wanting for Jon didn’t even stop when he was a suspected murderer. Martin’s in deep. The kind of in-love that only his own death can put an end to.

He hates it. Knows it’s futile and wishes his heart would just finally go cold and numb and dead. It should, after all this time with Peter, alone, fading from existence. He doesn’t feel anything about anything else. Wishes Jon weren’t the exception. It makes him feel creepy and wrong, harbouring such deep, painful, lasting feelings for someone he’s fairly sure by now has never even given half a shit about him.

And he was right, the intervention  _ didn’t _ go well. He listened to the tape. All it did was make him angry, angry that the girls didn’t have empathy, angry at the Eye for driving Jon to the edge of humanity, angry that Jon gave into his impulses when Martin’s been resisting his own for so  _ fucking _ long.

He’s honestly surprised Jon comes to work the next day. Martin sees him from the window of Peter’s office, hugging himself and smoking on the sidewalk. He disappears into the building, and Martin doesn’t see him again for days, not even from a distance, and that starts striking him as odd when he realizes no one else has seen him either.

Martin doesn’t particularly want to talk to the girls about it, but he’s worried. He’s got that sinking feeling he only gets when Jon does something stupid. On the third Jon-less day, Martin leaves Peter to struggle to open and read the chain emails piling up in his inbox, and heads down to the Archives.

The girls don’t see him when he comes in. He’s not surprised. People haven’t noticed him entering rooms in months. Sometimes they don’t even hear when he speaks. The Lonely is tenacious and it really takes to Martin, as Peter keeps saying.

He has to say some variant of “Hello--excuse me--hello--?” about five times before Basira finally blinks at him in recognition.

“Oh, Martin,” she says, not unkindly, but a little flat. “Didn’t see you come in.”

“Yeah, I know,” Martin says. “Uh, look, have any of you seen or heard from Jon? I noticed--”

“Nope,” Melanie says, tightly, not looking up at him, aggressively stabbing her keyboard. “No idea where he is. Don’t care.”

“I’m a bit worried,” Daisy says, catching Martin off-guard with her earnestness, as usual. “He might’ve done something really stupid, you know, and--”

“He’s fine,” Basira says, rolling her eyes. “He’s probably just gone to--I don’t know, to brood, or eat someone else’s soul or something.”

“Didn’t he come in the other day?” Martin asks, voice pitching up, trying to steer conversation away from the destination it’s headed to at a dangerous pace.

“Yeah,” Daisy says. “Three days ago. Hasn’t come back since.”

“And  _ no one _ tried to find him?”

“I called him.” Daisy shrugs. “He didn't answer, so I thought he might need space.”

“I’ll bet he comes back once he thinks enough time’s passed and tries to pretend everyone’s forgotten about all this.” Basira scoffs and shakes her head. “I can’t believe him.”

“Just--stop,” Martin says, face twisting a bit in annoyance, shoulders raising defensively. “Look, if none of you care enough to look for him,  _ I  _ will. But, you know, he--” 

Melanie turns to him, eyes completely flat yet burning with anger. Basira narrows her eyes and raises an eyebrow. Both of them look like they’re daring him to finish that sentence, to even attempt to show empathy or compassion to Jon. Martin gets it, really, but he’s not going to start a fight with them. He doesn’t have the energy. Avoiding people is so much easier.

He sort of lets himself fade from their view and memory, the fog consuming him. His eyes flick to Daisy, who stays watching him, even as Melanie and Basira’s eyes pass over him, forgetting he was even there to begin with.

She follows him out of the Archives, saying nothing until they’re out in the hall. “I can go with you,” she says, staring at the floor. “He--he saved me, least I can do is my job.”

“Not your job anymore,” Martin says.

“Nah, but it never really--”

“No,” Martin says. 

“What? Why wouldn’t you want--” Daisy starts, eyes flashing confusion and something far darker.

“Why wouldn’t I want a Hunt avatar to help me look for a man she almost murdered?” Martin asks. “I don’t  _ know _ , Daisy, why wouldn’t I?”

“Fine,” Daisy says, shaking her head and putting her hands up in surrender. “Good luck. I doubt he wants to be found.”

“Well, it’s not  _ up _ to him,” Martin says, and he’s aware he sounds like a petulant child, but--well, there’s no ‘but’, he  _ feels _ like a petulant child. All this shit he’s doing, everything with Peter, it’s--it’s  _ for Jon _ , and he doesn’t get to just  _ disappear _ because people are angry with him and are trying to hold him accountable for his actions. 

He probably blames Martin. He  _ should _ blame Martin. This was Martin’s fault, and now Jon’s fucking vanished because of it, and Martin has to drag him back. So, fine. Fine, he can do that. Martin Blackwood: professional caretaker for people who would rather forget he exists.

He heads back up to Peter’s office. Peter’s reading his emails out loud to himself under his breath, which might be endearing if Martin didn’t hate him, and Martin sits at his desk, trying not to feel like a privacy-invading freak as he pulls up employee records and looks for Jon’s address.

The thought of going to Jon’s home feels deeply wrong. It feels like a place that shouldn’t even  _ exist _ . Martin’s imagined what his flat would look like in so many different idle fantasies that he’d rather not know, honestly. 

He makes a plan to head over after work ends, and--

*

\--stumble his way into something that means something eventually, or something that reminds him what he’s doing here, or maybe a nice, lighted  _ exit _ sign, though that seems increasingly unlikely. How did he  _ get _ here? It seems awfully far from home.

Home. That’s a loaded word, isn’t it? Aren’t all words loaded? Empty chambers, waiting for little stupid meaning-bullets to be dropped in? Language is subjective. Perception is subjective. There is nothing  _ to _ reality. It’s a lightshow. A hoax.

Maybe he is home. Maybe this hallway is where he belongs. Maybe he’s always been here. 

A hunger pang rattles his body. No, then. Not home. Home would have food.

_ Food _ is, coincidentally, also quite a loaded, meaningless word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing the transitions in this...maybe a little Too much tbh. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Martin calls Jon on the Tube ride to his flat, and leaves a message just so he’s not totally surprising him, if he’s actually home.

Jon’s voicemail message is the same as always, a curt “You’ve reached Jonathan Sims, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m able.” Martin almost laughs at it. He thinks he’d change his voicemail to something a little more fun after transforming into a monster, something more along the lines of “You’ve reached the Archivist. I’m either busy consuming human suffering or saving the world, and when or if I’m finished, I’ll call you back.”

The phone beeps, and Martin startles back into reality. “Uh, yeah, hi, Jon! I’m--I’m really worried about you, I’m coming to your flat to check on you, if--if you’re even there!” He laughs nervously. “Um. If you--if you get this and you’re not at your flat, please call me back. I just, uh, I just want to make sure you’re alright, and I’m--I’m sorry. About. Well. You know. Uh. See you! Hopefully!”

The people pressed on either side of him look surprised when he starts speaking, like they had literally no idea he was there, despite their shoulders physically bumping his at every jolt in the track. It’s also probably an odd message to hear free of context, and Martin tries not to cringe away from potential judgment. 

He puts his phone back in his pocket, hunches in on himself a bit, and lets them forget he’s there--

*

\--again. And again and again and again, that sound pierces this wretched lost creature’s ears, like knives in his eardrums, shrill and insistent. That sound used to have some sort of meaning, didn’t it? Pavlovian, maybe. Ringing, and--and what? What should he be salivating for?

He reaches for the source of the sound, pulls it out of a back pocket. Smooth, black, loud, and--the sound stops bothering him. It’s got-- _ words _ on it, he knows they’re words, but he can’t--he can’t read them. He goes letter by letter, shape by shape, he can sort of puzzle that out. M-A-R-T-I-N. He can’t find a meaning in those letters, just a feeling, a sort of stag leap in his guts, near-graceful. 

The sound stops and the thing he’s holding turns blank and--he sees something in it now, a--a  _ face _ ? People don’t look like that, though, do they? How do you define a person? He stares at it, in what he thinks are its eyes, and it stares back, the gaze ricocheting, piercing straight through him.

Do “people” have quite so  _ many _ eyes? He can’t remember. He just stares at it, trying to understand why it’s there. The longer he looks at it, and the longer it looks back, the more frightened he is of it. It’s a nameless fear, animalistic and desperate, and he’s frozen in its headlights.

Finally, he forces himself to put the thing he’s holding back where it came from, and the maybe-person staring at him disappears with it.

He looks back up at the hallway in front of him. The wallpaper is patterned with eyes, and they blink lazily at him. Something flashes in his mind, a nudge from outside of him, and he starts--

*

\--up the stairs to Jon’s flat. The building’s pretty unassuming. Martin tries not to pay too much attention to it, he doesn’t need reality factoring into the shameful domestic fantasies he tries his best not to have. 

Jon’s is on the fourth floor, and Martin gets nervous by the third. He’s more scared of Jon being there than not, scared to find him in a bad way, scared to be told it’s his fault even though he already blames himself. Selfishly, he hopes Jon’s gone elsewhere, even though it’s more worry for him. 

He takes a moment outside Jon’s door. Flattens his hand against it and sighs, shaking his head to try and get the thoughts out. He curls his hand into a fist, still resting against the door, and forces himself to knock.

“Jon?” he calls. After a moment, he presses his ear to the door to see if he can hear anything inside. “Jon, are you there?”

There’s no sound inside. Martin briefly considers trying to break in, to see if there’s any indication of where Jon’s gone or what he might be doing, because every single worst case is flashing through Martin’s mind and he knows there’s horrible situations he hasn’t even considered that are equally as likely as any of them.

He tries calling Jon again. Shakily presses the phone to his ear, other hand gently drumming fingers against the door.  _ You’ve reached Jonathan Sims _ , and Martin settles into a resigned sigh, until the message continues with _ Stop calling me, Martin. _

Martin drops the phone in shock, backing away from the door. That--that wasn’t Jon’s voice. Or it was, maybe, but distorted, layered with--with static and shrieking and--he crouches to pick his phone up, chest heaving with terrified breaths. 

The call’s dropped, and Martin’s screen is glitching, somehow, brightly colored and pixelated. He pokes it, trying to get it to go back to normal, but it just flashes, angrily, the image forming in the static burning the back of Martin’s mind, even though he can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be. 

He shuts it off, or at least, goes through the motions of shutting it off, but nothing changes, so he just shoves it back in his pocket, trying to breathe. 

So something’s  _ very _ wrong, then, wronger than wrong, and Martin doesn’t know what the hell to do other than find Jon as soon as he can and drag him out of whatever he’s gotten into. He doesn’t quite know where else to look. It’s not like there’s another  _ home _ for Jon to go to. No parents’ house, no friends, no--

Wait, no, that’s not quite true, though, is it? He had a friend close enough to be willing to harbour him when he was wanted for murder. There’s always a chance--

*

\--to come back to himself, just a little. Or, more accurately, to come back to his god. The Eye stares in at him, through the layers of convolution and confusion. Awareness and knowledge trickle in through the cracks.

He was such an idiot to come here. He should’ve known it was a trick, or--or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he shouldn’t give up so easily. He can’t just call it and leave because--because he’s hungry, because his master’s calling him home, he’s not a  _ pet _ . He doesn’t fucking  _ need _ It, looming over him like an abusive lover, twisting him into something he doesn’t recognize. 

He stares into the infinity stretching out in front of him, the neon fluorescent light pouring from the ceiling, the subtly-shifting paintings of violent variants of scenes from his childhood, the blinking wallpaper, and sighs. 

“Helen?” he calls, and there’s no response. “Right. Fine. I’m coming. I think.”

He knows this flash of awareness won’t last long. Once the Eye realizes he’s ignoring It, the clarity will fade, and the Spiral will come play again. He wishes he hadn’t come alone. More and more, lately, he aches for companionship. Someone to dive headlong into danger with.

But then when they inevitably die and he survives, that’s another thing to carry around. He wishes he weren’t afraid of that weight. He wishes he were like—

*

—Georgie, that’s her name, right? Jon could be with her, since everyone else wants nothing to do with him, and...Martin tries and fails not to be jealous that this woman he doesn’t even know was Jon’s first call, potentially.

He doesn’t know how to find her information, and he’s sure Melanie won’t just give out her girlfriend’s address to anyone who asks, but, well, he can try? Plead his case? He’s sure it’ll end in yelling, but what else is his useful new skill of fading from memory for, if not that?

Or, more reasonably, he can wait for her to pick Melanie up for therapy and ask her about Jon then. He doesn’t like the  _ waiting _ , though, especially not now that his phone screen is covered in shifting pixels spelling out things like  _ fuckoffmarto _ and  _ giveitup _ , which Martin thinks probably the Apple store won't be able to fix.

He’ll figure it out. He has to. If Jon’s gone, if he’s in danger, there’s no point to any of the shit he’s doing to himself, no point to the isolation self-hatred and, worst of all, the endless putting up with Peter. 

He calls it an evening and heads home, wandering the cars on the Tube, unseen. He reads people’s texts over their shoulders, things like  _ love you _ and  _ I’ll bring wine  _ and  _ don’t wait up  _ and  _ good luck, babe _ and he absolutely aches from the inside out for someone to love him casually and intensely and every other possible way.

Loneliness is a hell of a drug. He sits invisible on the floor of the train, the energy and air sucked out of his body, until it reaches his stop. 

He pulls out his phone on his walk from the stop, out of morbid curiosity, and watches the entropy on his phone spell out  _ fuckinglonelylosergiveup _ .

“Thanks,” he mutters, and the pixels rearrange into a terrifying facsimile of a smiley face. He resists the urge to smash it on the pavement. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been two months so I am desperately trying to remember how to write this--but! I have a plan for the rest of it so should be working on it more consistently again. Hope you enjoy <3
> 
> CW: spiral-typical mindfuckery, light stalking (?)

\--and there are only doors, no corners to turn, no steps to retrace, just doors on all sides. He must’ve come through one of them, though he can’t remember the act of reaching out and brushing metal with his hand.  _ His _ hand. Presumptuous. The hand that dangles from the arm that hangs limply by his side.

The burst of self-awareness his god/captor/destroyer forced on him is fading, he’s fading, he doesn’t know anything anymore. Other than his purpose. 

He has to choose a door. He knows that at least. He can’t just stand here, the walls seem to be slowly pulsing in, living and hungry. The doors are all identical, though, and they all stir distant, half-trusted memories of spiderwebs and childhood trauma--or, no, they all look like the door to his...what’s the word. The dimly lit room where he eats. No, not  _ eats _ . Feeds. Consumes. Breathes in new experiences and new terrors and shudders high and raw and ruined with them. The door that made him a monster. 

But maybe...maybe he won’t be so  _ hungry  _ if he goes through it. Maybe the door still holds something he needs.

He grabs the handle, and the door--

*

\--swings open before Martin even touches it, revealing a faintly startled and confused looking woman on the other side, squinting up at him with a bag slung over her shoulder.

“Uh, hi,” Martin says, with a nervous smile and a semi-cheery wave. It’s the best he can manage. He’s honestly a bit surprised she even sees him.

“Who are you?” she asks, cocking her head.

“M-Martin,” he says. “Um. I work with--with Jon?”

“Right,” Georgie says. “Yeah, he talked about you. What--why are you here? How’d you get my address? That’s…”

“Look, Jon’s gone missing and I just wanted to check if he was with you, that’s all,” Martin says, waving off and ignoring the second question, because he doesn’t want to admit that he sort of...followed Melanie to therapy and then followed Georgie home after. That’s the sort of thing that you don’t tell people and keep buried until the shame builds up such pressure in your ribs that you can’t stand it anymore.

He sometimes wonders why he’s doing all this for Jon. It’s not normal. Not healthy. Not the kind of thing he should be doing for someone who’s never been all that pleasant to him. He could psychoanalyze himself, sure, but. Best not to. Besides, the answer, more than ‘I wish I could’ve made my mum love me’, is just...he loves Jon. So. Fantastic.

“He’s not here,” Georgie says, adjusting the strap of her bag. “I know it’s none of my business, but maybe you should let him stay missing. He probably doesn’t want to be found.”

“I don’t know why everyone keeps  _ saying _ that,” Martin snaps, before he can apply his patented Anxiety Tone Modulator. “It’s not as if--I mean, when people go missing, their friends should  _ care _ and  _ look for them _ and not just say ‘he probably doesn’t want to be found’ as if that makes any sense or is even  _ remotely _ constructive.”

Georgie’s eyebrows have been steadily climbing her forehead. “Maybe the other people saying that are right too. Maybe they’ve caught onto the fact that Jon’s not interested in being saved.”

“I don’t  _ care _ if he’s interested in it or not,” Martin half-shouts, then takes a deep breath, pressing his hand over his mouth for a moment. “Everyone deserves to be saved. Everyone who’s--who’s still  _ trying _ .”

“ _ Is _ he still trying?” Georgie asks. She pauses, then continues, more softly. “Look, Melanie told me about--about what he’s been doing to people.”

“She shouldn’t have,” Martin says, aware of how petulant he sounds.

“I’m just saying, I don’t know if he  _ can _ be saved, or if he even should be,” Georgie says, shrugging. “I tried to save Jon before. It wasn’t easy and I didn’t succeed, so I...I told myself it was alright and it wasn’t my fault or my job. I don’t know you, Martin, but I know it’s not your job either.”

“You’re right,” Martin says, face hardening. “You  _ don’t _ know me.”

“Alright,” Georgie says, putting her hands up. “Not my business. Go  _ rescue  _ him. I’m sure he’ll be  _ really _ grateful.”

She slides past Martin and starts down the stairs, and Martin stands there, fuming. Fuming and--and  _ hopeless _ , because if she doesn’t know where Jon is, Martin’s not really sure what other leads he has. 

Just waiting, he guesses, waiting until some new window--

*

\--opens, and the door was a lie, because there’s nothing close to sustenance on the other side of it, just more doors. A vast cavern of doors, lining massive walls and vaulted ceilings and expanses of oddly-patterned floor. The choice feels overwhelming until he realizes that yet again, the doors are all identical.

Yellow. Dark yellow. Black handles on every single one, like punctuation marks in an alien language, shouting wordlessly at him. 

He knows these doors, even if he hasn’t--hasn’t seen one, he remembers, it’s--that’s the door--that’s--

“Helen?” he calls.  _ Helen _ . The sound is unfamiliar, the shape of it in his mouth, the taste sweet and psychedelic and overwhelming. Letters that signify something beyond comprehension.

_ Helen _ . Hell-end? That would be nice, wouldn’t it, to get out of here? He really  _ is _ hungry. He could use something to stuff in that gaping void in his existence, and some fresh air, and someone to hold him.

He approaches one of the walls coated in doors, and it backs away, endlessly. He crouches to open one of the doors in the floor and the room tilts on its axis, sending him falling hard into the wall.

There was a myth like this, he thinks. The man whose punishment was to be inches away from the things he needed. Can’t remember the name. Can’t remember his own name. 

A room full of doors he can’t open. He’s sure they’d lead him right to--to--to whatever he’s here for. He reaches out again, and the room tilts again, and he falls again. This time he doesn’t stand back up, just lies there achingly hungry and exhausted, and then one of the doors on the ceiling high, high above him opens.

“I didn’t take you for the  _ lazy _ sort, Jon!” calls a familiar-unfamiliar too-loud shrill-deep staticky-blinding-clear amused-mocking voice. “Come on now, get up!”

Jon. Jon. That’s--that’s him, isn’t it? Jon. If he’s Jon, then who’s--

“I can’t open the door,” he calls back, pathetically.

“Oh, Jon,” the voice says. It clicks its tongue. “That just sounds like a plain old lack of effort! Put your  _ back _ into it.”

He half-heartedly picks himself back up and walks towards a wall. It doesn’t recede this time, it lets him approach, and when he slowly reaches out to push the handle, it--

*

\--opens. Maybe he  _ should _ ask Daisy for help. Even without all the Hunt stuff, she  _ was  _ still a detective, and as much as Martin doesn’t like cops, he does have to admit that finding missing people is a job they’re at least decent at starting.

He doesn’t really know what else to do. Worry starts gnawing at him, fear that Jon’s--what? Martin can’t even imagine what he could’ve done. He’s already gone into the Buried alone, already been kidnapped and badly burned and chucked into the Vast--what now? He’s probably doing something  _ stupid _ to try and atone for feeding on people, because he’s got all that guilt, and--and if Martin had just kept it to himself and not let anyone know what Jon was doing, he’d still be here and semi-safe, and none of this would be happening. 

It’s his fault. Of course it is. Everything is. But--but he’s going to  _ fix it. _ Whether Jon likes it or not. Because Georgie’s wrong, because--because Martin remembers when he was a child and he’d have fits and storm off, he was always  _ desperate _ for someone to follow him, to notice his absence and be pained by it and come after him. 

And sure, Jon’s not a child, but--but who’s to say it’s not the same kind of thing? Maybe he just wants to be worth it to someone. And he’s worth it to Martin, if no one else. More than worth it. Maybe he won’t be grateful, but he’ll be back, and that’s what matters. Even if Martin never gets to see him, it’ll be reassuring to know he’s there. To know--to know he’s  _ trying _ . To--to think about him, floors below Martin, existing in the same building, alive and breathing and  _ there _ , just in case circumstances ever miraculously perfectly align for Martin to tell him how he feels.

Sure. Unrealistic, but stranger things happen all the time. First, though, Jon has to be alive and findable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I'm really enjoying writing this. I don't think it's going to be very long, mostly because I'm too excited to get to the actual Spiral Orpheus Bit. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> CW: spiral bullshit, self-loathing

\--the passages wind labyrinthine and endless, the turnings so arbitrary and sudden at times, so few and far between at others. He keeps a hand to the wall just to feel  _ something _ outside of him, something that isn’t just the hunger, heavy in his bones, stabbing, slowing him down.

The hallways change, though, the deeper and more tangled he gets, they become less--less overwhelming allconsuming madness color shifting mirage delusion hellscape, and more...more like the faded old shipwrecks that are the closest things to memories he has left. Duller colors, recognizable shapes, like the disproportionately long halls of childhood homes.

It’s almost familiar. They wind into each other, like he’s entering and exiting houses without ever touching a door. There’re pictures on the walls, but when he tries to look more closely, the people in them are--too sharp or too hollow or not proportioned right or--

In one of them, he sees someone he thinks he recognizes, and he pauses, hand hovering over the cracked glass in the frame before pulling the shard obscuring the face away. It cuts him, and the pain is sharp and insistent, and it brings him back to himself.

This picture isn’t distorted. Maybe the others weren’t either. Maybe he just can’t remember what people look like. It’s still disturbing, though. Looks like a holiday picture from unreality. His own face glares at him, gaunt and tight-lipped and coated in eyes, every one of them open and staring at him, and next to him--the name briefly escapes him, the face fogged-over even with the glass gone, eyes distant and misted, but it comes back in a moment, a gasping flash of clarity, it’s--

*

“--Martin,” Peter finishes, and Martin only begins to half-pay attention because Peter says his name. 

“Sorry, what?” Martin asks, blinking the mind-consuming worried speculation about where Jon is out of his mind. 

“You alright?” Peter asks, with his customary distaste for basic pleasantries. “You seem... _ distant _ .” He smirks delightedly at his own distinctly unfunny joke. He’d almost be charming if Martin didn’t hate him.

“Yeah, sorry,” Martin says. “What were you saying?”

“It’s the Archivist, isn’t it,” Peter says. “Would you like me to ask Elias where he is? I could use him back. Not much of an Institute without an Archivist.”

“No, that’s, um--” Martin starts, intense discomfort with the entire concept of Elias bubbling up nauseatingly fast, memories of the pain and trauma he placed straight into Martin’s mind pulsing into a migraine. Could be useful, though, maybe. But no. Best to keep Elias out of the equation.

“Martin,” Peter says, sighing almost sympathetically. “Martin, you’re a lot like me.”

Martin chokes down a loud scoff so hard he coughs a bit. “How’s that.”

“Love really is the quickest path to loneliness, isn’t it?” Peter’s eyes are soft and distant, and Martin feels winded by the words, like Peter actually struck him. “That pain, that twisting knife of  _ are they ever going to love me back _ , you know Forsaken  _ loves _ that, don’t you? Nothing more isolating in the world!”

Martin can’t breathe, fog twisting its way through his guts, the taste of cheap, hastily made oolong forcing its way onto his tongue. No.  _ No _ . He’s not like Peter and Jon isn’t like his mum and--and he has to leave. He can’t stay here. He can’t stay here and listen to Peter  _ fucking _ Lukas jovially tell him that his whole life’s just been pulling him closer and closer to a god that’s been parasitically feeding on him as long as he can fathom. He can’t--he can’t let himself think about how loving Jon the way he does is only making it stronger.

He numbly pushes himself to his feet and walks out of the office, leaving Peter still talking. He doesn’t exactly know where he’s going, he just has to be  _ away _ . He finds himself in the Archives, wandering unseen between the desks and ending up at the door to Jon’s office.

He can’t believe he never thought to look in here before. It still feels like an uncomfortable violation of Jon’s privacy, somehow, even though he’s been in here any number of times before, bringing Jon tea and talking about his follow-up for statements and, occasionally, when he was living in the Archives, sitting at Jon’s desk writing poetry and idly fantasizing and hating himself for it the entire time.

Still, despite the creeping wrongness, he turns the handle and slips in, pressing his hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp when he finds at least a dozen tape recorders covering Jon’s desk, all whirring patiently.

He closes the door behind him. “Do  _ you  _ know where he is?” he asks the tape recorders, idly, but they just continue purring like deeply unhelpful and aloof cats, as he expected. He sits down in Jon’s chair and digs through desk drawers, hand closing around and then quickly dropping Jon’s rib. It’s a weirdly intimate thing, to touch something that was another person’s physical structural support.

There’s nothing there. No note. Maybe a tape, Martin thinks, but as he’s searching, there’s a soft knock at the door, and Daisy comes in a moment later.

“Hi,” she says, and Martin pauses his search to sigh at her. “No luck finding Jon, then?”

“Nope, none,” Martin says. “Not at his apartment, and when I tried to call him more than once, the Spiral broke my phone. Not with his ex again either. I don’t really know what to do, I--”

“The Spiral broke your phone?”

“Yeah, I mean, I think. It’s very...overwhelming to look at, and when I do it mostly just insults me?” Martin says, shrugging.

“Then he might be in the Spiral,” Daisy says, simply, and Martin silently curses himself for not thinking of that before. 

“...could be, yeah,” Martin says, leaning his face into his hands and sighing. “Christ, Jon.”

“I can go get him out.” Daisy’s voice is soft but determined, and when Martin looks up at her again there’s something hungry and wild in her eyes. 

“I...I don’t think that’s--”

“I’d be able to find him,” she says, more insistently. “And he did it for me.”

“Can you do it without losing yourself?” Martin asks, as brutally honest as he can manage, which honestly isn’t all that hard. Nice to say what he means every once in a while. “Because if you can’t, I don’t think that’s gonna end well for you  _ or _ Jon.”

Daisy sighs. “I still owe him.”

“And how’s Basira gonna like it if you go into the Spiral for Jon and never come out?”

Daisy looks away. “Fine. Then who’s going to? You?”

“Why’s that so hard to believe?” Martin asks, shoulders raising defensively.

“Just…” Daisy sighs again, looking back at him. “Martin, love alone can’t save a person. Trust me, I--I know.”

“Good thing I’m planning on using more than that, then,” Martin says, hardening. 

“You’ll probably want to talk to Helen?” Daisy says.

“You know where she is?” Martin asks.

“She lives in the tunnels.”

“Great. Wonderful. I  _ love _ the tunnels,” Martin says.

“I can still--”

“No, I’m--I can do this,” Martin says. “Thank you, Daisy.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, with that odd, disarming sincerity, and turns to leave, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. “Be--be safe. Have an anchor. It’s--it’s probably horrible, in there. Wherever he is.”

“He might not even be in there. I don’t know if I trust Helen to tell me the truth either way.”

“You shouldn’t,” Daisy says. “But. It would make sense.”

“You think?”

“What says  _ Jon _ more than throwing himself into the self-proclaimed ‘throat of delusion’ because we all found out he was eating people?” Daisy asks, shrugging. “I’m sure he has some stupid self-sacrificial reason, but it’s punishment, in the end, right?”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Martin says.

“Me too.” Daisy leaves, and Martin sits there, taking a long breath, trying not to let his mind jump to all the horrible things Jon could be experiencing in the Spiral, all the horrible things he could be letting into his--

*

\--mind. It isn’t what it used to be. The picture he’s holding has nothing at all abnormal about it. It’s a photo of two men, neither of whom he knows, smiling at him. He blinks it off, gently places the picture back on the wall, and startles as a voice comes from behind him.

“Admiring the décor?” it asks, cheerily, loud and blinding. It doesn’t wait for an answer. “Thanks! I did it all myself! I mean, it’s all  _ me _ , so I didn’t have to try very hard, but it’s still nice to be appreciated.”

“Who-- _ what _ are you?” he asks, throat near-paralyzed with fear, not wanting to turn around and see the  _ thing _ the voice belongs to. The eyes of the men in the picture he’s frozen staring at are wide with fear. One of them mouths  _ run _ , but--there’s nowhere to go. Being a cornered creature, a rat in a maze, it teaches you--there’s never anywhere to hide.

“Oh, Jon. You’re not  _ you _ when you’re hungry.” The voice sighs. He-- _ Jon _ \--doesn’t turn, just keeps breathing, in through his nose and out through his mouth, that’s how he’s supposed to breathe when he’s panicking, he remembers that, at least. “It’s almost sad. Oh, well! You’re  _ so close _ to finding her! Just keep going, Jon. You can  _ do _ it.”

The presence behind him fades, and he sags against the wall for a moment before glass frames start violently exploding all around him, shattering loudly, shards flying through the air, and he manages to find the energy to run down the corridor, towards--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: referenced self-harm, continued (though less aggressive this chapter) spiral fuckery, self-loathing

\--a two story house whose floor plan he absorbed through the Eye a long time ago, and he remembers who he is, and he remembers that Helen Richardson showed this house to something poorly half-pretending to be Michael Shelley, and he remembers why he’s here.

“Helen?” he calls, and the sound is swallowed by the walls on all sides. “Helen, it’s Jon--Jonathan Sims, from--from the Magnus Institute, I’m here to get you out.”

There’s no response. The sound evaporates into the ceiling, consumed whole. All he’s doing is addressing the Distortion around him. He has to actually  _ find _ Helen. Every step he takes weights his body down more, with painful, starving static, and he eyes the stairs with pained resignation. He remembers. The door that led her into the Spiral was on the second floor.

He can barely drag himself up the stairs, taking them on all fours like a child, breathing heavy, aching through his entire being. He collapses three steps from the top and curls up, feeling awareness and knowledge and memory pulse and fade away. One thing he knows with clarity: even if he finds Helen, he might not make it back out. 

He turns onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, vision pulsing psychedelic and overwhelming. He squeezes his eyes shut, which fixes nothing, and feels something sit on the stairs next to him.

“It’s alright, Jon,” Helen says. She sounds more like a person than the bombastic bright-colored beast he’s come to know. “You can give up.”

“No,” he breathes, nausea pulsing in his guts, swallowing hard. “No, I’m so close, you’re--you’re  _ close _ , I can fix it.”

“Maybe it can’t be fixed.”

“No, she’s-- _ you’re _ still in there, and--and it’s my fault, and--no one deserves to be here forever and--” 

The presence he felt next to him evaporates, and he’s left breathing heavy, trying to summon the energy to get himself up the last few--

*

\--stairs seem out of place in the tunnels, but then again, nothing really feels out of place in the tunnels. It’s all a confusing claustrophobic nightmare hellscape, and Martin has  _ no _ clue where he’s going, but he figures if he gets lost enough, he’ll probably end up in the right place. That seems like it  _ should _ be how the Spiral works.

He tries to just wander mindlessly, and not worry about Jon, fragmented and disoriented and barely clinging to his fragile as-is sanity, all because Martin couldn’t just keep something to himself. It’s hard to avoid, though, and the images force themselves into his mind, Jon weak and barely hanging on, Jon tearing at his skin, Jon--

He can’t do it. Can’t handle it. He tries to turn them all into his stupid, idle fantasies, the way he used to. Pulling Jon’s hands away from the bloody scratches he’s leaving in himself and holding them and telling him it’s going to be alright, or--but that’s not really respectful, is it, that’s just dreaming about  _ saving  _ someone. Coming in and fixing his own mistakes and being the hero, being  _ needed _ . He’s so selfish and warped.

But, still. He’d want to save Jon even if Jon never knew it was him. Having Jon back is worth it, if only because he’s ten times more important to the fate of the world than Martin’s ever going to be.

He finds himself at a door. A dark yellow door, with a black handle, and he knocks, slowly and tentatively. It opens quicker than he expected, and he’s faced with what he can only imagine is Helen. She’s disproportionate and terrifying in the way those smiling masks with empty eyes terrified him when he was a kid.

“Hello, Martin!” she says, cheerily, and the sound crescendos nauseatingly loud in his head.

“H-hi, Helen,” he says, trying to manage a semi-pleasant smile, but he feels it twist into a grimace.

“I bet you’re looking for Jon,” she says, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially. 

“I am,” Martin says. “Have you seen him?”

“I have! I see him right now!” she says, and Martin turns to look behind him and sees only tunnel. “Sorry. Bad phrasing. I  _ feel _ him in the hallways.”

“So, so he’s--”

“He entered me a few days ago!” she says, brightly, and Martin’s face scrunches in alarm at the phrasing. “Me being the Distortion being the Spiral. It’s all proxies and stand-ins. Monstrosity’s gotten so very  _ bureaucratic  _ since Jonah Magnus. Public faces and private perversions. Well, you’d know all about that. Jon certainly does!”

“Is he alright?”

“Not very,” Helen says. “He’s starving. I  _ could  _ feed him someone, but I think he’d be cross with me, and I’d rather like to maintain our friendship. He’s gone in to  _ save me _ .” Helen winks at Martin. Well. He thinks it’s a wink. It’s sort of hard to tell, considering her shifting, confusing semblance of a face.

Jealousy swells, absurdly, at the realization that, yet again, Jon’s thrown himself into danger to save someone he barely knows and has been antagonistic with but can’t seem to go upstairs to just fucking ask if Martin’s okay.

“What do you need saving from?” he asks, flatly, and she giggles, like daggers in his brain.

“Oh, he’s saving  _ Helen _ . I misspoke. Me, Helen, but  _ not  _ me, Helen.”

She sounds like a horrid outtake of a Lewis Carroll character, and she’s giving Martin a horrible headache trying to parse what she’s saying, but...that’s the Spiral, he guesses. He does at least definitely believe Jon’s in there now. He has a strange compulsion to trust Helen, even if he knows how bad of an idea that is. 

He pulls the tape recorders that were all lying in wait in Jon’s office out of his bag and piles them in front of the door. Helen regards him, curiously.

“What is  _ this _ ?” she asks. “Some little shrine to him? To lure him out?”

“It helped last time,” Martin says, shrugging. “Please don’t...move them, or…”

“No, no. They don’t like me much. They’d just show right back up!” Helen sighs, melodically.

“Do you--I know this is a stupid question, but do you have any tips for getting back out?” Martin asks, bracing for the too-loud laugh that inevitably bursts out of Helen.

“Why would I tell you?” she asks. 

“Because you said you’re friends with Jon?” 

“I did, didn’t I?” 

Martin waits for follow-up, but there isn’t any. He stands back up, slings his bag over his shoulder, and approaches Helen. She steps aside and gestures grandly towards the door, and he takes a long, deep breath, and--

*

\--pushes himself up the last stair, barely managing to get back to his feet at the landing. He staggers hard into a wall, but claws himself forward, inch by inch, until, finally, he comes to the door Helen Richardson went through. He can barely support himself, just rests his forehead against the yellow wood and closes his eyes against the blinding prismatic pulsing it emits.

He silently begs the Eye to give him  _ any _ idea what’s on the other side, but they’re not on speaking terms, and It gives him absolutely nothing. His hand ghosts the handle, but there’s a nagging feeling he can’t shake.

“Helen?” he asks, weakly.

“Yes, Jon?” she responds, cheerily, leaning on the wall next to him.

“Is Helen Richardson really in there?”

“If she were anywhere, it’d be there.”

“That’s not an answer,” Jon says, voice flat and dull, already sensing where this is headed. A long runaround in which she tells him absolutely nothing. Like every conversation with the Distortion.

“No, it’s not.” There’s a smile in Helen’s voice. He’s almost glad he doesn’t have the strength to look.

“There’s no saving her, is there.”

“There might be,” Helen says, and he catches the outline of a shrug. “Nothing’s impossible.”

“You don’t  _ want _ to be saved.”

“Correct!”

“Why did you let me come this far?” he asks, desperately exhausted, knowing the answer before it comes, even if she’s not going to tell him the truth.

“You seemed so _determined_ , Jon, and I know it was a personal journey, self-discovery and inner strength and all that _human_ _garbage_. I thought it might teach you to leave it all behind! I was just trying to help.”

“No,” Jon says. “No, you wanted to feed on me.”

“Do you  _ really _ think so little of me?” Helen asks, with a little mocking gasp of offense.

“I don’t know,” Jon says, shaking his head, trying not to cry stupid frustrated tired tears. “I’m sorry, Helen.” He doesn’t even know why he’s saying it. It’s an admission of defeat. He can’t open this door. He doesn’t want to know what’s on the other side. As far as he’s concerned, he already got what he came here for.

All that’s left is to go--


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: very vaguely referenced past addiction, self-loathing, memory/identity loss

\--through the hallways, ever-on, straight and true. Martin’s trying to paint himself as an Arthurian hero on a quest, or maybe a Greek myth or an epic poem. His odyssey. His descent into the Underworld. It’s easier to think about that than it is the halls around him. If he doesn’t pay attention, he doesn’t have to notice the wallpaper shifting patterns or the family pictures of him and his parents from another world where they’re all together. Doesn’t even seem fair that the Lonely’s even seeping in  _ here _ to fuck with him, but, well, what does he expect anymore.

He just pushes on. Thinks about Jon, hoping maybe, somehow, holding the intent in his mind will make Martin more able to find him. He’s bound to the Eye, after all, and that should be good for  _ something _ . He thinks about Jon’s occasional soft glances, about the way he cares intensely for nearly every person he meets (well, other than Martin), about how he secretly takes his tea  _ much _ sweeter than he lets on. 

He at least feels like he’s making progress through this endless maze, like the singleminded focus is helping. He’s never been one to really second-guess reality all that much. He tends to take things at face value, so the Spiral isn’t as bad for him as it could be, he guesses. But this is just the upper level. He hasn’t been in here long. It could always get--

*

\--worse. He can’t take much more. There has to be light at the end of this tunnel, fresh air at the top of this caving-in mineshaft, he has to get  _ out _ , he’s so desperate it  _ hurts _ , and even as everything about himself and his life fades again, he knows exactly what he’s desperate for.

He still has memories, divorced from names or familiarity or meaning. He’s felt like this before. Deja vu. Bathroom floors and shuddering cold-hot sweating and the sort of craving that’s enough to make anyone want to dig nails deep into their body and wrench their organs out. This is...different, but the same.

And he knows he’s on his own, lost in these recursive, Escher-nightmare hallways. A building, if buildings hated him. He’s--he’s alone, isn’t he. No matter how hard he tries not to be. Even if he finds his way out of here, what’s waiting for him? He doesn’t remember, so it must not be anything worth holding onto.

He sinks, shakily, to the ground, hugging his knees, resting his head against a thrumming, soft-singing wall, and lets himself be swept away trying to figure out where he knows the song from. A dead, forgotten dream of a life he never had, maybe. Doesn’t really matter, as long as it takes his--

*

\--mind off the way he can literally  _ see _ the hallway extending ahead of him, or the way his memories seem to be sort of...like they’re loose marbles in a box that a little kid keeps shaking obnoxiously, rattling around and rearranging and cracking. He channels his mother and in his inside-his-head voice tells that annoying little brat to stop it and leave him alone, and it actually sort of  _ works _ .

He doesn’t know how on earth he’s supposed to find Jon. He should’ve come up with some kind of  _ plan _ , not that there really  _ is _ a plan that would work. There’s nothing to do but keep at it and hold onto himself and his hope. Sometimes he thinks maybe all he  _ is _ is his hope. Certainly he can’t separate the two. Maybe that makes him stupid and naive. So be it.

He’s going to break the Spiral before it can break him, goddammit, he’s going to save Jon and be a  _ fucking  _ hero and  _ matter _ and be  _ worth _ something. 

The phantom taste of oolong floods his mouth again, and he resists the urge to spit. This has nothing to do with his mum, and he wishes his mind--or the god that’s becoming an inextricable piece of his mind--would stop tying everything back to her. She’s dead and gone and even if it  _ was _ his fault, there’s nothing to mourn, not anymore. He did his grieving. He was a good son. Brought flowers to her grave. Wrote a poem about her. Got miserably drunk and cried to comically sad indie music. He did his part, and he can stop pretending that her being dead does anything to make his life harder. It’s better without her, that’s the fucking truth. 

All she did for him was leave him to the Lonely, to feelings of inadequacy and unlovability and endless longing for things he can’t ever ask people for. He’s not doing this to prove anything to her, because she’s dead, and that’s stupid, and he doesn’t have to prove a damned thing to her besides. He was better than she deserved, no matter how she made him feel.

He’s not doing this to prove anything to Jon, either. He’s doing it because it’s the right thing. Because Jon’s a good person who deserves to be saved, and Martin’s going to do his best to remember that and not be bitter if Jon doesn’t treat him any differently when they’re back. 

The hallway, suddenly and inexplicably, ends. A door presents itself to him, and he twists the knob and shoves it open with a determined vengeance. He’s expecting another impossible hallway, but instead finds a large room, full of doors open to twisting corridors, like the chamber of a massive heart, veins and arteries webbing out, and, in the middle of it, pressed up against a wall, Jon--

*

\--stares blindly into the distance, eyes blurring over and unfocusing. There’s no strength left in his body, just gnawing, cloying,  _ thick _ need. He’d vomit from it if there was anything left in his body.

There’s sound that isn’t coming from the walls. That’s new. A--a  _ voice _ , a human voice? Soft and insistent, then yelling, panicked and shrill. Something touches his face and he flinches hard away from it, he doesn’t want to be touched, not anymore, all his memories of touch are of pain. 

“ _ Jon _ ,” the voice is saying, “Jon--”

*

“--look at me,” Martin says, dropping to his knees next to Jon. There’s barely anything familiar in his eyes, he’s so far gone. There’s an iridescent glint to them, a shifting, prismatic  _ otherness _ , and it takes Martin’s breath away, beautiful and terrifying all at once. 

“I don’t--” Jon starts, voice soft and far-away and ragged. He tries to clear his throat, but seems to forget how to swallow, and Martin tries not to cry. “Could you--could you help me, please? I don’t...I don’t know where I am. Or--or who. Do you know me?”

“Yes,” Martin breathes, trying to get himself together. “Yes. You’re Jonathan Sims. You’re the--”

“--Archivist,” Jon finishes. 

“Yeah,” Martin says, through the bitter taste Jon knowing his title and not his name leaves in his mouth. 

“And who are you?” Jon asks, quietly and tentatively. 

Martin’s heart snaps, but, well, it’s used to that. Something breaks it clean in half every so often and it always seals back up after a bit. He remembers their first meeting, how Jon used to be—distant, faintly cruel, trying to live up to a title he couldn’t possibly understand. Remembers the sneer that flickered across his face when Martin introduced himself. Remembers how instantly he fell in love. 

“I’m Martin,” he chokes out. “I’m here to help you, Jon. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

“Martin,” Jon repeats, tasting it, like it’s the first time he’s ever heard the name. “Are we--are we friends?”

“Yeah,” Martin breathes. It’s--is it a lie? He doesn’t know. It doesn’t really matter. 

“Martin, I’m starving,” Jon says, with a desperate flicker in his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t remember how to stop feeling this, but I--I  _ have  _ to.”

“Oh,” Martin says, a bit squeakily. Of course. He hadn’t even--Jon hasn’t read a statement in days, of course he’s starving. Martin’s so fucking  _ stupid _ , he should’ve figured, should’ve taken a statement with him, but he didn’t. So there’s only one thing to do. “Right. I can--I can help. You have to listen to me, though. I know it’s hard to focus, but please try.”

“Alright.” Jon’s eyes are fixed on him, gaping and bottomless and insatiable. Martin takes a shaky breath, and tries to find a story to tell him, just enough to--to get him the strength to get out of here.

“When I was eight, my mum lost me in a grocery store,” Martin starts, looking away, unable to deal with the intense, direct scrutiny. “I--I got scared. I was too  _ old _ to be scared, that’s--that’s what she told me, but I was anyway. I kept trying to find her, but I couldn’t remember what she was wearing, so I ended up getting even more lost. The--the fluorescent lights and the reflective white floors and the cold from the freezers, it was like...like a whiteout. And then--then I was just…alone. All the people in the store were gone. Just--”

*

“--gone,” Martin says, and Jon inhales the trauma, the decades-old fear. The stabbing pain starts to recede, and awareness rushes back in, enough that he knows exactly what Martin’s doing. He doesn’t want him to stop, deep down. The part of him that  _ isn’t _ him is tearing into even the start of the statement like a caged, carnivorous beast. He knows he needs it to survive.

He doesn’t want Martin to stop, but he  _ needs _ him to. He can’t feed on Martin, he--he can’t have their first real interaction since the Unknowing be  _ this _ . Especially not now that Martin’s, what, come in here to  _ save  _ him? If Martin keeps going, Jon knows he won’t be able to stop himself leaning into it. Won’t be able to stop the feedback loop that comes with feeding, amplifying the fear, making Martin relive it so Jon can get the most possible out of him. Draining him.

He can’t do that. Not to Martin. Not to the man stubborn enough to walk straight into the Spiral for him.

“Martin, stop,” he says, but Martin meets his eyes again, that familiar defiance burning bright.

“No,” Martin says. “You need it.”

“Martin, I can’t--I--” He sighs. “I came in here because--”

“Because you wanted to save Helen?” Martin says. “That’s what she said. But it’s because of--because of the  _ intervention _ , isn’t it. You...you wanted to--”

“I wanted to save Helen so I could prove to myself that I could be saved too,” Jon says, softly. The most honesty he’s forced out in a while. “If...if she was still in here, if she was reachable, if...if she could stop being the Distortion, then maybe I could stop being the Archivist. I don’t--I don’t want to hurt people, Martin. I never did. And I can’t hurt you. I can’t do this to you.”

“You’re not doing anything to me. You’re not compelling me. I’m offering it to you of my own free will, and you’re going to  _ take it _ , alright?” Martin says, raising his chin in what almost looks like a dare, and Jon wants to laugh and cry all at once. Barely bites down an  _ I love you _ , though he has no idea where it’s coming from.

“Alright,” he half-sobs, in a strangled, restrained noise.

“Thank you,” Martin says, a bit haughtily, and Jon can’t help but smile. 

“Thank  _ you _ ,” he says, reaching out and squeezing Martin’s hand. Martin jolts, but doesn’t pull the hand away. 

“Can I finish?”

“Go--”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: addiction reference, referenced vomiting, dumbasses poorly parsing feelings

“--ahead,” Jon says, still holding Martin’s hand. Martin lets him, figuring he’s probably just forgotten himself. 

“So--everyone was gone. I was cold, and alone, and the aisles stretched on as far as I could see. I kept thinking I saw people ahead of me, just a little further--shadows on the floor, but...nothing. Just shadows without people attached. Like ghosts, I thought. I thought I was dead. I should’ve been scared of that, I guess? But I wasn’t. I was completely freezing, inside and out, like--you know when you’re so cold and you make yourself stop shivering and you’re not any warmer but at least you’re not struggling anymore?” The memory starts to overwhelm Martin, a bit. The sensation he’s describing floods his veins. Jon’s eyes are black holes and amplifiers at once. “I wanted to run, I wanted to—to shout for my mother, but—but I couldn’t even remember her face, and I was so...heavy and cold. So I just...I just drifted through. I—“

“You don’t have to finish, Martin,” Jon says, softly. “I think I have enough strength to—“

“Stop interrupting. I know it’s not a very interesting story, but it’s mine,” Martin says, firmly. Jon closes his mouth and nods. “I was there for—for hours, I think. I couldn’t remember where home was or...or what my parents looked like or what  _ I _ looked like. There was just...just fog. Eventually I just...sat down. There wasn’t anything else to do. I didn’t remember where I was going or what I was trying to find but I knew no one would look for me and no one cared. I was alone.” The feeling of abandonment rises and strangles him, the fact that it’s never changed. “I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. There was nothing in me but...fog. It made me sick, all...thick and wet and freezing inside me. I just wanted to get it out. I tried to make myself throw it up, and—and then everything was normal, and there was a crowd around, watching this gross little girl vomit in the frozen section. My mom yelled at me for the whole drive home and never listened to a word I told her about what happened.”

“I hate your mum,” Jon says, plainly, and Martin can’t help but snort, even as all the sensation hits him again. 

“Well, she’s dead, so you can save the vitriol for someone else.”

“Oh,” Jon says, softly, surprised. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Martin says, shrugging it off. “Why are we even talking about this? We should be getting out of here?”

“You’re--”

*

“--right,” Jon says, nodding, trying to breathe evenly and not let on how even Martin’s short, simple statement felt reverberating in him. It’s like every time he’s tried to quit smoking and gotten far enough that relapsing makes him feel like a teenager having his first cigarette again. Certainly, that’s an easier comparison to make than...than others. Doesn’t make him feel great about himself regardless.

Despite the rush of the Eye, though, he’s still deeply disoriented. The Spiral’s in his inner ears, his sense of direction. Even if he gets a flash of clarity pointing him magnetically towards an exit, everything will just  _ shift _ , and they’ll be lost again. He’s too far gone. 

“I think if we just--” Martin’s saying, some wholehearted and hopeful plan, Jon’s sure. Maybe he should be listening, but he’s certain Martin doesn’t really have anything beyond the anchors Jon can feel gently tugging at him, and Jon doesn’t really want to let him go on.

“Martin, it’s...I don’t really know how to get us out,” Jon says, softly. “My mind, it’s still...it’s all doublethink. I’ve always been a bit susceptible to the Spiral, and--”

“Well, I’m not,” Martin says, shrugging. “And if you’ll  _ listen _ , I have an idea.”

“I’m listening,” Jon says. Can’t help a flicker of a smile at Martin’s gentle pushiness. 

“If--if we can’t  _ see _ the hallways, it can’t trick us, right?” Martin asks. “I mean, it can’t mess with our expectations or gaslight us if we can’t see how it was originally.”

“So we keep our eyes shut?” Jon asks, squinting a bit.

“Well...I feel like it might be able to trick us into looking, so I think blindfolds would be a better plan.”

“You brought blindfolds?”

“...no,” Martin says, making a pained face. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thinking about much other than…” He trails off, but the Eye catches the rest of the sentence, even if he doesn’t say it.  _ You _ . “Well, that’s alright, I  _ did _ bring a jacket, and clearly I don’t need it, so we can rip it, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a dumb idea.”

“No, it--it’s worth a shot, at least,” Jon says, trying to be as diplomatic as possible and not mention that sight isn’t the only sense the Spiral gets a handhold in. His heart also twinges in a vaguely familiar but long-forgotten way at the thought that Martin brought a jacket into the Spiral, just in case. “I’ll buy you a new jacket.”

“No need,” Martin says, waving a hand at him as he digs in his bag. “I never wear it anyways.”

Jon’s breath catches, some feeling trying to claw its way out of his throat, but he doesn’t understand it enough to verbalize it, so he lands on something close. “Martin, I...thank you. Thank you for…” He gestures vaguely. “Well, everything.” 

“Thank me once we get out of here,” Martin says, with a tight smile, trying to rip his jacket. “Not much sense in gratitude if we get stuck forever.”

“You still came for me,” Jon says. “So I’ll thank you if I want to.”

Martin looks up and meets his eyes, just for a moment. “You’re welcome.” It hangs between them, and that  _ feeling  _ pressing at Jon’s insides pushes harder, overwhelming him. 

It’s easy to explain, though, if he thinks about it for more than a second—he just got a statement from Martin. The Eye’s satiated, expressing its satisfaction with him. That’s all it is—appreciation of a meal. 

It has nothing to do with how much he missed Martin, or the way his face furrows in focus, or the intensely stubborn—

Thankfully his train of thought is interrupted by the tearing of fabric. Martin makes a small yelping sound, and then hands--

*

\--a strip of his jacket to Jon. Jon takes it, though he’s looking at Martin still, with a strange expression Martin doesn’t quite recognize and tries not to take personally. Martin really doesn’t need to be overthinking anything right now, the Spiral is a  _ bad _ place for that, so he sets himself back to making himself an improvised blindfold.

When he finally manages, Jon’s got his tied around his eyes.

“Is it good enough?” Martin asks, and Jon shrugs.

“The Eye doesn’t like it when I can’t see,” he says. “It’s not really working. I can still--you know those hyperrealistic half-awake dreams of your room?”

“So you can still see,” Martin says, flatly.

“More or less. I think you’ll have to lead me.”

“Alright.” Martin sighs. “Alright, I can do that.” He stands up, slides his bag over his shoulders, and ties the strip of cloth across his eyes. It effectively blinds him, and it’s actually a relief to not see the Spiral anymore. He didn’t realize how much just the ambience was fucking with him. 

He turns himself in a direction at random, figuring it doesn’t much matter, and tries to think of something out in the real world he wants to get back to. It’s a struggle, especially when the thing he cares most about is standing right behind him.

“I’ll follow you,” Jon says softly. There’s a moment of silence and stillness, and Martin feels Jon’s hand tentatively reach out and press flat against his back. “So you know I’m here,” he explains, in barely a whisper, and Martin resists the urge to shudder at his touch.

“Thanks,” he breathes, and starts--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a couple more chapters! I've been really enjoying writing this fic and I hope you're all enjoying it too <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got unbearably tender. Whoops. I also stole this particular Spiral manifestation from another one of my fics lmao
> 
> CW: spiral fuckery

\--walking, aimlessly, down one of the many shifting hallways to nowhere. Jon memorizes the pattern of Martin’s jumper, then the number of individual stitches he can count in it, and then the rhythm of Martin’s breathing under his hand. It blocks out the Spiral well enough, near as he can tell, only focusing on things he can double-check. That assumes he can trust himself, but, well, what else does he have left? The shit he hates himself for is, at least, a known quantity.

Martin pauses. Time doesn’t exist. They’ve been walking ten seconds. Five days. No difference.

“Um,” Martin says, softly, staring blindly ahead of him into nothing. Jon’s grip on his back tightens reflexively in response, and Martin chokes back a scream, jerking hard away from Jon’s touch. He staggers, hard, and hits a wall, sinking to his knees.

Jon immediately crouches right at his back, hands hovering just behind him, unsure what to do. “Martin?” he says, quietly, but sternly, as if he can somehow shame him into being alright. He needs a better bedside manner if his life is going to continue on the track it’s on.

“enola em evaeL,” Martin un-mutters, irritation and sadness and anger melting in his tone. Jon tries, gently, to open the Eye on him, but is only met with a seizure-inducing pulse of color and incomprehensibility. 

“Martin--”

*

“ em llet uoy nac, gnorw s’hatw, nitraM--?” Jon says, and those aren’t words, and Martin’s mind howls for mercy. His cells feel everything it’s possible to feel at once, and he can’t decide which sensation to focus on, just like he hears conversations in the air currents around him as well as Jon un-speaking softly behind him and he can’t figure out which is more important.

His dreams have been getting so fucking  _ weird _ lately. Maybe he should see someone. He thinks probably his subconscious shouldn’t be giving him sensory overload all the time. He wishes he could wake up all the way, but his eyes won’t open, so he sinks back into it.

“nitraM.” Jon reaches out and shakes him, and the vibration ripples pearlescent through his nerves. “em ot klaT. esaelP.”

“I don’t understand,” Martin chokes.

What were they  _ doing _ here, anyway? How did the dream start? Probably how all of them do: with Jon. Ending up trying to escape the Spiral with Jon anti-talking sweetly to him fits the bill. 

He’d like to wake up and face reality. He doesn’t like getting too comfortable with dreams, especially not the strange ones. Easy to forget how things are supposed to be.

“siht thgif esaelP. uoy evol I.” Something in Martin’s brain manages to catch that and flip it.

“I love you too,” he says, before he can stop himself, because it’s a dream, and why can’t he get what he wants in a fucking  _ dream _ , if nowhere else.

“yrt em teL--”

*

“--this,” Jon says, reaching up and untying the blindfold, gently pulling it off Martin’s eyes. He blinks, breaths small and shallow and frightened, and squints ahead.

“What the fuck was that?” Martin asks, voice tiny.

“I think the blindfold might’ve been a bad idea,” Jon says. “I’m sorry. I hoped it would work.”

“But you knew it wouldn’t,” Martin says, softly, somehow managing a defeated, sad scoff. 

“I assumed. Nature of the Spiral, I think. When it can’t attack the sense you rely on the most, it targets all the others. More work, but at least as rewarding.” Jon shrugs. “Just speculation.”

“Could you speculate another time?” 

“Yes,” Jon says, immediately and emphatically. “What can I do to help you?”

“If--well, not seeing was my main plan, but--”

“Why? Because you could continue unerring in your path, unable to see it change?” 

“Y-yes,” Martin stutters. “You, um, you  _ change _ a bit after you...feed, don’t you.”

“Do I?” Jon asks, blinking, unaware of any difference.

“You seem...more present,” Martin says. 

“That’s strange,” Jon says, since it feels as if he’s everywhere. Terrifying and satisfying all at once, like he’s always thought a good drug should be.

“Is it?” Martin asks, laughing nervously.

“No,” Jon says, shame twisting sharp and painful in his guts at the fact that he broke his own promise to himself. Not only that, but he did it to  _ Martin _ . Sweet, brilliant Martin who descended the pits of fucking Tartarus for him. “No, I suppose not.”

“Did. Um. Did you say you love me?”

Jon’s breath catches. He’d said it in the moment, panicked by Martin speaking in reverse and slipping out of even whatever tenuous branch of reality they’re in, and hadn’t considered if he’d meant it, only if it would help. He doesn’t think he’d say something like that if he didn’t mean it, though. It’s not the kind of thing he throws around. He was raised to believe love was something that should be felt and not expressed, so--so  _ what, _ then? He panicked. That’s...that must be all.

“I...did,” Jon says, slowly, nodding. “Uh. Ye-yes. I--I said that.”

“Oh.”

Silence hangs, then Jon clears his throat. “Well, Martin, this is still putting a lot on you, but I think our best shot out of here is you leading us straight out.”

“But it can shift, and--"

“Trust yourself,” Jon says. “This place isn’t real. Walls are really more  _ suggestions _ than obstacles.”

“But--”

“I  _ really _ want to get out of here. And I trust you.”

“Jon,” Martin says, voice small.

“No. You can do this. Just don’t lose faith.”

“Jon, we’re going to die here.”

“No, we’re not.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Martin breathes, audibly barely holding himself together. “And I’m  _ scared _ .”

“I am too,” Jon says, a laugh forcing its way out of him. “Just get up, start walking, and don’t look back. I’m right behind you.”

“You didn’t ask why I came for you,” Martin says, sniffing back tears.

“Why did you come for me?” Jon asks.

“Because I love you. Whether--whether you love me or not, I don’t care if you were just saying it to try and help me, that’s--it’s  _ fine _ , but I’ve loved you since I first saw you shout about improper filing and lost statements. You care  _ so much _ about _ everything _ , Jon. You care so much about a woman you met once that you walked straight into at least a fourteenth of the world’s population’s greatest nightmare on the off chance you might find her,” Martin says. “There’s no one I’d rather have saving the world.”

“I love you too,” Jon says, voice low and painful in his throat. “I couldn’t tell you for how long. I truly don’t know. But I know I do now, and I’m not really sure what else matters.”

“I really want to see you,” Martin breathes, and Jon squeezes his shoulder.

“Once we’re out of--”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: internalized transphobia, Spiral-typical fuckery (hallucinations and self-doubt)

“--here,” Jon says, and Martin shudders, trying to steel himself, trying to save the overthinking and overfeeling for later, when they’re free of this. It’s hard, though, not to think about--about Jon  _ loving _ him? That’s...it’s probably not real, anyway. If the Spiral can get in his head and flip language backwards and make him think he’s dreaming, then it can definitely make him hallucinate Jon telling him he loves him.

He just...he just has to keep moving. Jon’s right, assuming that part even  _ was _ Jon. No second-guessing, no looking back.

He pushes to his feet, and Jon follows, that soft, reassuring pressure bracing against his spine. Martin takes a long, deep breath, and starts walking. 

The corners of his vision prickle, alive with movement, some mass of  _ something _ writhing towards them, and his breath hitches, muscles tensing. Jon makes a gentle shushing sound, like Martin’s some kind of wounded animal, and takes loud, slow breaths, clearly trying to get Martin to follow suit.

“None of it’s real,” Jon says, once Martin’s also taking exaggerated, ragged breaths. “Remember that. It’s a trick. Keep going.”

“If you’re so sure it’s all a trick, why don’t  _ you _ lead?” Martin asks, voice small and tight and pitching up.

Jon laughs, softly. “I didn’t say it was an easy thing to believe. I’m struggling as well. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know, I know, sorry,” Martin says, sighing. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Jon says, and Martin shudders with the weight of that as he keeps putting one leaden foot in front of the other.

“That’s obviously not true,” he says, in barely a thick whisper. “It’s my fault everyone knows that you’re--well, um--”

“That I’m a monster?” Jon asks, and there’s a hint of bitter amusement in his tone. “It’s alright, Martin. It was the right thing to do.”

“I mean, it wasn’t, because look where we are.”

“You can’t blame yourself for other people’s choices.” Jon squeezes the back of Martin’s shirt, gently. “That’s no way to live.”

“Well, you can’t tell me what I can’t do, because guess what? I can,” Martin says, fairly shittily. It’s on purpose. Being difficult makes him feel a little better, somehow. 

“If that’s what you want,” Jon says, strange fondness in his tone.

They lapse--

*

\--into silence, and Jon tries not to let the Spiral in any further. He breathes, focuses on Martin’s breathing, reminds himself that he is real and so is Martin, probably, and this will end. He’s had a bad trip or two in his life, he knows the drill, though back then he had Georgie talking him through it, fighting the sensory overload with pleasant overstimulation, her fingers massaging his scalp.

He would very much like for Martin to hold him. Once they’re out. Once they’re out. He repeats that to himself, like he did in the Buried, it’s--they’ll make it because they have to, there isn’t another option.

They approach the end of the hallway, and Martin falters slightly. Jon squeezes his shoulders. “Keep going.”

Martin takes a shaky breath, and steps forward, through the wall. Jon holds tight and follows, squeezing his eyes shut to try and shake off the sensation of wrongness. His body shudders, a chill running through him, and he slits his eyes open to find another hallway, this one marble-floored and reminiscent of an ancient palace. 

“I didn’t like that,” Martin breathes, and Jon can’t help but laugh softly.

“Me neither,” he says. “You’re doing well.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Martin says, shoulders hunching defensively, pressing on.

“I’m not just saying that for my health, Martin, I promise,” Jon says, tightening his grip on Martin’s shirt as the world tilts on its axis and he tries desperately not to collapse, nausea rising violently. The floor seems to shift under his feet with each step, and even though he  _ knows _ it isn’t real, he still takes slower, measured, stuttering pauses to try and figure out where to put his foot next.

Martin, bless him, stares dead ahead, probably lost in his own personalized delirium, breathing shallowly and walking on, fairly quickly. Jon tries to keep up, but falls behind due to his unnecessary abundance of caution, detaching from Martin to go at the pace his traitorous mind tells him he needs to.

He manages to get a hold of himself and walk more normally again, though ‘normal’ seems to be a stretch. It feels like being a teenager trying to pretend they’re not high in front of their parents-- _ just _ wrong, but not in any definite, discernible way.

Martin’s frozen ahead of him, breathing rapid and shallow, muscles tensed. “Please stop,” he breathes, though it’s really more of a squeak, and Jon tries to rush to catch up to him, to reassure him, but the space between them extends exponentially with each step he takes, and Jon swears, loudly.

“Martin, don’t look, but I’m still here, I’m behind you, I promise,” he calls, and Martin doesn’t move a centimetre, just keeps hyperventilating as Jon rushes to catch up.

“Leave me--”

*

“--alone,” Martin breathes, throat burning, trying to hold back stupid, childish tears as the walls whisper and the cold fog closes in on him.

_ he let go he doesn’t love you you imagined it he abandoned you you’ll die here _

And the walls swell and breathe and lean in closer and his vision prickles and swarms, figures and shadows in the fog that he knows are just tricks of the light and the Spiral and his stupid fragile mind, but they scare him nonetheless, keeping him stuck in place, and there’s still whispering in his ears, ever closer, blowing at his hair.

_ it’s polite to say please and thank you when asking for something martin is that your name it’s ugly like you don’t you wish you’d stayed pretty _

“Please-- _ please _ ,” he chokes out, near-sobbing. “ _ Jon _ .”

Something crashes into his back, and he’s too numb to feel pain, the sensation just ripples strangely through his body, like that radiant, confusing pain of hitting an elbow hard against something.

“Martin,” Jon’s voice says, and something reaches up and winds fingers through his hair, pressing in and massaging and there are thousands of mites crawling out and over his scalp descending his skin into his ears and eyes and mouth and he can’t see or breathe and he falls to his knees again he’s so  _ weak _ he wanted to be the dashing fucking knight but he can’t stop himself from being the stupid needy princess even when it comes to saving the dragon and he’s losing his metaphors it’s not like he was ever a good poet and--

\--and he struggles for air and his eyes burn and Jon’s hand is pressed against the back of his head and something feels as if it’s travelling through his skull, burning off the layers of nonreality, and for a moment, the Spiral’s tricks all fade away, and they are absolutely nowhere at all, a void with dozens of pinpricks of light that for a moment, Martin sees with perfect clarity as entrances and exits. 

His head throbs as the illusion fights once again for its hold on him, and strobe lights black out his vision, flaring and overwhelming him and then fading.

They’re in the hallway of the home he grew up in, but not--not  _ quite _ . Martin struggles to remember what he just saw, holds onto--this is just some massive power playing with his mind, it’s--how did Jon  _ do _ that?

“What?” he breathes, which isn’t very eloquent, but it gets the point across.

“I don’t know, I just--I just wanted to help you, I--” Jon says, hand sliding down to Martin’s back again, grabbing a tight fistful of his shirt and twisting. “Are you alright?”

“No,” Martin says. 

“Where are we?” Jon asks, softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Martin says, trying to shake it off and push himself back to his feet. “Nowhere we’ll be stuck in long. We’re--I mean, you saw, we’re not far from...from a door. So.”

“I didn’t see,” Jon says.

“So...the Eye just reached out and helped me via you?” Martin asks.

“I guess so.”

“Okay. Doesn’t matter, I guess, let’s just...let’s go,” Martin says. “I’ll be fine once we’re out of here.”

“Please talk to me, though, Martin,” Jon says, pressing into him. “If I know what you’re experiencing I can try and help.”

“But what if it starts using that against me, right? Knows I’m expecting it and takes your voice and tells me the opposite of what I need to hear and--and--”

“Martin, if you’re second-guessing before we even try--”

“Yes, I know, I’m so  _ difficult _ . Martin’s ruining everything again because he can’t just waltz out of the gaslighting hellscape and--”

“That’s not what I’m saying, if you’d let me finish--” Jon says.

“I’m here because of  _ you _ , Jon, because--because I didn’t want to be in a world without you, so you should just let me do this how I want, okay?” Martin’s voice breaks, and he swallows down tears as he pointedly avoids making eye contact with a family picture on the slightly incorrectly-patterned wall. 

“I’m trying to help you so insistently because I already want to destroy myself over the fact that you’ve suffered at all for me,” Jon says. “But fine. You’re right. You’re so  _ fucking _ stubborn, but that’s your prerogative.”

“Don’t _ be  _ like that.”

“Do you want my input or do you want to feel sorry for yourself?” Jon snaps, slightly, and Martin’s breath catches in his throat and he starts walking, trying to shrug Jon’s hand off his back.

Jon doesn’t let him, just holds tighter.

“It’s fine,” Martin says, voice tight.

“No, I’m sorry. I’d be lost forever if not for you. I just...I can’t forgive myself for getting you hurt.”

“I’m not hurt. I’m--”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I haven't updated in eons And this is short I'm sorry! I'm close to the end, though, and I promise to finish in a timely manner :) Hope you enjoy.
> 
> CW: conflict, implied neglect

“--perfectly capable of handling myself,” Martin says, though it quiets to a petulant mutter, like he knows he’s lying through his teeth. Like Jon can’t smell the fear coming off him in cold waves. Scent of oolong and industrial cleaners. An incomprehensible mix if he doesn’t dig into Martin’s mind, and he tries not to. That’s the last thing Martin needs right now.

“Alright,” Jon says, as lightly as he can manage. He doesn’t let go of Martin or even loosen his grip. 

Martin walks slowly through the hall, pointedly keeping his eyes fixed on the floor, but the more he focuses on it, the more uneven it becomes, vomiting up the odd stair or patch of shattered glass. Martin sees all of it and never alters course. Hisses as he steps on the glass, but doesn’t focus his attention anywhere else.

“Martin, where are we,” Jon asks, finally, again, eyes brushing over a picture on the wall of a man who looks nearly identical to Martin, save for more weather-worn features and colder eyes. He wishes he could tell Martin to turn around so he could--what, kiss him? Not the time or place. Realistically, he’d just like to press their foreheads together and stay there forever. He assumes the man must be Martin in a decade or two, just the Spiral fucking around, or...well, it’s not  _ exact _ .

“Nowhere that matters,” Martin says, voice small. “We’ll be out soon.”

“You have to keep looking ahead, Martin,” Jon says. Tries to be soft and reassuring, but insistent. It’s their best hope. “If you don’t try and look through this place, it’ll loop us back around. Farther away.”

“I don’t  _ want _ to.”

“I know,” Jon says. “But you have to. Tell me about the house. Tell me why it hurts you so much. Maybe it’ll lose its power over you.”

“No, you just--you just want me to tell you so I can feed you, I don’t...it’s not  _ for  _ you, alright? This is mine alone.” 

Martin’s words strike Jon square in the chest, the implication that--that he’s just begging for power and sustenance, that he can’t ask someone he loves to share their feelings without being suspected. But what did he expect? If you become a monster, everyone expects monstrosity, and there’s no going back, it--

*

\--seems like this isn’t ever going to end, but Jon’s right, it’ll go better if he looks up and powers through, even if after his mum’s funeral he promised himself he’d never have to see this house ever again.

He takes a deep breath and forces his chin up like he’s pushing against a weight. The door to what used to be his mum’s room is at the end of the hall, and the sight of it makes him nauseous, shoulders tensing. Jon’s grip loosened after the last thing Martin said, which he realized was brutal and unfair as soon as he said it, but how’s he supposed to react? The concept of Jon loving him is so new and difficult to parse that Martin can’t quite fit it all in frame, and it’s easy to make up ulterior motives that don’t just involve Jon caring about him, especially in a place like this. 

No one cared about Martin in these walls, real or dreamed. He used to fantasize about burning the house down after his mum moved out so he wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore, this, the birthsite and native ground of his freezing, suffocating loneliness. 

His eyes sting with stupid, childish tears as he steels himself and stalks down the hall. He’s not sure why he’s crying. Maybe because it’s unfair that he has to deal with this house again. Maybe it’s the weight of the Spiral and saving Jon. Maybe maybe maybe. There’s no definite answers in this place. 

He doesn’t glance at the walls. Doesn’t need to see the torturous, alternate-reality family pictures of the life he could’ve had. Doesn’t want to see his mother in any capacity, and certainly doesn’t want to see his father. He knows what his own face looks like and he’s sick enough of it as is. 

Jon takes a short, sharp breath like he’s about to say something, and then his teeth click, shutting his mouth. Then the breath again. “I’m not trying to  _ feed  _ on you, Martin, and I resent—“

“I know,” Martin says, sighing, trying to keep the tears out of his voice and mostly succeeding. “That was unfair. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing has to be  _ yours alone _ ,” Jon says, nearly perfectly mimicking Martin’s voice. It’s not mocking, just eerily accurate and slightly chilling. “I’m here with you.”

“I really don’t want to talk about this, Jon, I don’t,” Martin says, shrugging. Jon winds his hand tighter so Martin can’t dislodge him. 

“Wouldn’t it feel good to let go?” Jon asks, quietly. “You hold things so tightly, Martin.”

Martin continues that sentence in his head with  _ and that’s what kills them, in the end _ . This sad, boring house full of sad, boring memories will die in his chest and with him if he never tells anyone else about it.

They reach the end of the hallway. “What happens once we’re out?” Martin asks, hesitating at the door, hand hovering over the knob.

“What do you mean?” Jon asks.

“Well. You have to, I don’t know, keep saving the world, and I have to--I have to keep Peter away from you, and...it’s not like we can be together. If you even...if you wanted that. Sorry. Shouldn’t assume,” Martin says to the wood, forehead nearly pressed to it. A position he’s held so many times it’s muscle memory, calling in to his mother, asking if he could come in, asking all sorts of things in place of what he really wanted to say, which was always some variant of  _ if you love me I need you to make me believe it _ or just, simply,  _ for the love of god please pay attention to me _ .

“Of course I want that,” Jon says, so softly, so gently, so fondly, his hand brushing the back of Martin’s head. Martin nearly sobs. “We’ll find a way.”

“I don’t know, Jon,” Martin says, choking back tears. “There might not  _ be _ a way.”

“Well, then, we’ll make one,” Jon says, almost like he’s irritated by the inconvenience of the situation and Martin’s can’t-do attitude. Martin flashes on the Jon he met years ago, all blistering irritation and awkward, obviously unintentionally hostile smalltalk, and almost smiles.

“Alright,” Martin says. “Can’t argue with that, I guess.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, though. First thing’s first.”

“Right.” Martin takes a deep breath. “Right. Okay.”

He turns the handle and pushes into his mother’s room, and--


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you all for reading, I've really enjoyed this one <3
> 
> CW: referenced child neglect, suicidal ideation (via killing your past self...idk)

\--Jon holds tight to Martin, going so far as to rest his forehead on Martin’s back as he stands frozen on the threshold, shuddering with silent tears. Jon can’t see past him into the room, and he won’t look into Martin’s mind, so all he can do is cling to him and hope Martin can move through it soon enough.

“What is it, Martin?” Jon asks, softly, and a shaky breath rattles into Martin’s lungs.

“Nothing.”

“That’s obviously not true.” 

“It’s--um. It’s...it’s hard to explain, I don’t…” Martin shakes his head. “Just give me a sec, and I’ll be able to push through. Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Jon says, even though it isn’t, and every time he closes his eyes he’s falling headfirst into places in his mind he’s afraid to touch, and the Eye’s starting to blur and fade. He can’t pressure Martin, not on this. He understands trauma well enough not to do that to him. 

“It’s, uh,” Martin starts. “It’s. A photographed collection of all the times I could’ve died in my childhood that my mum wasn’t paying enough attention to prevent. Funny, because--because I remember all of them, and I remember thinking she could’ve let me die, and then--and then thinking  _ no _ , she  _ must’ve _ cared. I doubted myself, I--I guess I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m not in the habit of celebrating deaths, but I’m becoming increasingly glad I never have to meet her,” Jon says. “More accurately, she should be glad she never has to meet me.”

“It’s--look, it’s  _ fine _ , because...because I’m still here. I’m here, and--and  _ you’re _ here, and--” Martin takes a deep breath. “I can do this. She doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. Past’s the past.”

“Doesn’t mean it can’t hurt.”

“Yeah, well, now’s not the time for hurting, unfortunately,” Martin says. “So let’s go.”

“Alright,” Jon says. “But you can talk about it.”

“I know.” Martin takes a deep breath that Jon can feel expand his ribs, and then--

*

\--starts walking forward, straight on, ignoring the wall dead ahead of him and all the pictures on it of moments that never deserved to be memorialized. He stares a picture of himself as a sad little kid right in the eye, allows himself a moment of sympathy, and then steps through the wall, closing his eyes and focusing on Jon’s weight against him.

He slits his eyes open once he thinks they’re through, and finds a hospital hallway, with a yellow door at the far end. “I think that’s the last one,” Martin says, softly, unable to keep the delight out of his voice at the thought that it could be over soon.

“That’s good,” Jon says, but he sounds lightyears away, like he didn’t hear Martin at all. Martin starts walking, and Jon follows, slowly, like a confused zombie, until he pauses at an open door to their right. Martin hasn’t been looking, not now that the personal stakes are gone, but he spares a glance since Jon’s stopping him dead.

A standard hospital room, and a familiar one, if only because of the softly breathing form hooked into a dense web of tubes and IVs. “Oh,” Martin breathes, staring at the Jon in the bed. 

“I, um,” Jon says behind him, and Martin so badly wants to turn back and hold him, but he knows he can’t lose his course.

“It’s not real, Jon. You can’t--I mean, I’m not even sure what you  _ want _ to do here, but you can’t. You go in there and we’re lost.”

“I would be. You could--you could get out without me, it’s…” Jon starts.

“No, I couldn’t, Jon, I came here for you,” Martin snaps. “Look, I got through... _ that _ , this is just--it’s just a  _ hospital _ , alright? I--I don’t even know what you _ want _ here, but we’re so close, and--”

“I want to kill him before he can decide to live,” Jon says, with a surprising clarity and intensity. “To protect him and everyone else too.”

“Okay,” Martin says. “That’s. I mean. That’s concerning on a number of levels, but--again, Jon, it’s not like this is a time portal, it’s just a labyrinth, yeah? It’s just trying to lure you off course so the Minotaur can get you.”

“You’re Ariadne, then?” Jon asks, and Martin can hear the weak smirk in his voice.

“I guess so.” Martin half-laughs. “I was more thinking Orpheus.”

“Of course you were,” Jon says. “You’re such a romantic.”

“Well, someone has to be,” Martin says. “Jon...it’s...for what it’s worth, which I’m sure isn’t much, I’m...I’m glad you chose to live, despite, you know, everything. You’re a good person and I’m lucky you’re alive.”

“It’s worth a lot.” Jon’s voice is soft and fond and Martin so desperately wants to see his face, even if he can imagine it with perfect clarity. “I’m sorry. It’s…” He sighs.

“Nothing to apologize for. I understand.”

They stand there in silence for a moment, watching the fake Jon in his fake coma with his fake breathing, and Martin tries not to remember the long hours sitting in that uncomfortable chair next to the bed, waiting and praying. No sense remembering. It’s over. Jon’s here, awake, behind him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jon says, weakly, and Martin nods.

“Let’s.”

They walk down the gently undulating hallway, Jon’s limp becoming more pronounced with each step, foot dragging. Martin didn’t think to bring his cane, or--well, he figured Jon would’ve remembered, but Jon doesn’t really  _ think _ before rushing into things, and the cane’s still new, so. He must be in a lot of pain. Martin didn’t even consider. Even more reason to get this over with fast.

Reality--or, really, unreality--warps and twists, splitting apart at the seams the closer they get to the door, blinding and changing every time Martin blinks, but he fights the disorientation and closes his hand around the door handle, pushes against a massive weight on the other side with his entire body, and--

*

\--falls through into Jon’s office, where a sycophantic audience of tape recorders all click on in unison. 

Martin laughs, breathlessly, Jon still pressed against his back. 

“Are we sure this is real, though,” Jon asks, voice caught in his throat. Even as he asks it, he knows it’s a paranoid question. It’s like going from fluorescent lights into a gently lit summer day, even if all the lights in his office are off, and--metaphors. He needs to stop second guessing himself.

“I think so,” Martin says. “It feels like it is, right?”

“Yes,” Jon says, nodding, even though Martin can’t see him.

“So I can turn around now?”

“I would love it if you did.” 

Martin turns around, slowly, and a smile spreads across his face. The Eye breathes the sight in, sweet and stunning, and explodes associations through Jon’s mind. Open fields blooming in the spring. God rays bursting through clouds after a grey, slow storm. A warm, fragrant cup of tea pressed into cold hands.

“Good to see you,” Martin says, still smiling, and Jon has to force air out of his lungs so he remembers to breathe.

“Thank you,” Jon says, emphatically, because he means it more than he’s ever meant anything. There’s no  _ saving _ him, no tether to yank him back out of this abyss, but that doesn’t mean his life is over. That doesn’t mean he has to lay down and die. There’s plenty left to live for.

“You just gonna stand there?” Martin asks, shrugging his right shoulder slightly.

“Oh. Right,” Jon says, blinking. “Where are my manners?” He stands on his toes and gently kisses Martin’s cheek. Martin immediately flushes deep red, and as soon as Jon lowers himself again, kisses him firmly on the lips.

“Don’t  _ ever _ do  _ anything _ like that  _ ever _ again,” Martin says, pulling away and forcing a stern look. “I was really worried, and--and I still am, frankly, but--”

“I’m not planning on it, Martin,” Jon says. “Why on earth would I willingly leave the reality that has you in it?”

“I love you, Jon. So much.”

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much <3 I don't tend to write happy endings, so I hope this one hits.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3 All feedback is appreciated!  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend


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